Scoundrels Quotes - Page 7

• But . . . I may as well say what I should not otherwise have said, that I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman’s mind to be more like my own than any other man’s living. As he is a very great scoundrel this is not a pleasant confession.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Heart, Men, Mind

  Quoted in Denis Donoghue England, Their England (1988).

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• I have no idea what the mind of a lowlife scoundrel is like, but I know what the mind of an honest man is like; it is terrifying.

  Abel Hermant

  Truth, Honesty, Crazy

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• Under the pressure of fanaticism, and with the mob complacently applauding the show, democratic law tends more and more to be grounded upon the maxim that every citizen is, by nature, a traitor, a libertine, and a scoundrel. In order to dissuade him from his evil-doing the police power is extended until it surpasses anything ever heard of in the oriental monarchies of antiquity.

  H. L. Mencken

  Order, Law, Evil

  H. L. Mencken (2013). “Notes On Democracy”, p.45, Read Books Ltd

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• The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose/lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape.

  Martin Van Creveld

  Strong, Fighting, Opponents

  "Sharon’s Last Option" by Martin Van Creveld, www.counterpunch.org. November 16, 2002.

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• Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

  H. L. Mencken

  Saving, Annoying, Improving

  Newspaper Days: 1899 - 1906 ch. 2 (1941)

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• Everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel.

  George III

  Doe, Traitor, Agree

  "Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War". Book by Richard M Ketchum, p. 65, 1997.

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• Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of our imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude.

  Eduardo Galeano

  Mean, Warrior, Reality

  Eduardo Galeano, Cedric Belfrage (1988). “Century of the Wind”, Pantheon Books

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• Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel.

  H. L. Mencken

  Life, War, Government

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• Our history is every human history; a black and gory business, with more scoundrels than wise men at the lead, and more louts than both put together to cheer and follow.

  Philip Wylie

  Wise, Cheer, Men

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• I was only following orders," the Mayor mocks. "The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time.

  Patrick Ness

  Order, Dawn, Excuse

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• Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Patriotism, Firsts, Resorts

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• A man's behaviour may be quite harmless and even beneficial, when he ismorally behaving like a scoundrel. And he may do great harm when he is morally acting on the highest principles.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Acting, Principles

  1906 BB. The Doctor's Dilemma, act 3.

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• Society is older than government. But every persisting society implies the existence of government and laws; for a society without government and laws is at once overturned by its madmen and scoundrels and lapses into barbarism.

  William Batchelder Greene

  Government, Law, Lapses

  William Batchelder Greene (1875). “Socialistic, Communistic, Mutualistic, and Financial Fragments”, p.21

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• What a fate: to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once gave rise to the gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels, was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted only an hour or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed?

  Franz Kafka

  Morning, Fate, Men

  "The Metamorphosis". Book by Franz Kafka, 1915.

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• Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel.

  Joseph Addison

  Passion, Eye, Men

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1826). “The Spectator: With Notes, and a General Index”, p.114

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• Like a battalion of marines at roll call, her neck hairs marshaled to five-alarm status. She stumbled back to her desk, jerked open the botton drawer, retrieved a pair of Nighthawk binoculars, fixed the scopes on him, and fiddled with the focus. Gotcha. Hair the colour of coal. Chocolate brown eyes. A five-o'clock shadow ringing his craggy jawline. Handsome as the day was long... He sauntered towards her, oozing charisma from every pore. Charlee forgot to breathe. And then he committed the gravest sin of all, knocking her world helter-skelter. The scoundrel smiled.

  Lori Wilde

  Eye, Marine, Hair

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• A concern with 'public morality' is - if not the last refuge of a scoundrel - the first foray of the fascist.

  Erica Jong

  Lasts, Firsts, Morality

  Erica Jong (2007). “What Do Women Want?: Essays by Erica Jong”, p.86, Penguin

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• What is noble, lyrical, tender in the upper level shown is also with the servants, scoundrels, and scamps, as in a distorting mirror. This contrast seems to me a most appealing musical theme--to show love in its noble and crude forms, romanticism and crass realism mixed as in everyday life.

  Stefan Zweig

  Mirrors, Musical, Everyday

  Richard Strauss, Stefan Zweig (1977). “A Confidential Matter: The Letters of Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig, 1931-1935”, p.70, Univ of California Press

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• Human nature is a scoundrel's favorite explanation.

  Mason Cooley

  Humanity, Human Nature, Explanation

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• Only by himself, with one acre and a house, will a dunce be a dunce. Once he manages to gain power, he'll turn into a scoundrel.

  Franz Grillparzer

  House, Stupidity, Acres

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• Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, andits salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.

  H. L. Mencken

  Art, Politics, Entertainment

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• No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In the highest confidence there is always a flavor of doubt--a feeling, half instinctive and half logical, that, after all, the scoundrel may have something up his sleeve.

  H. L. Mencken

  Trust, Believe, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.10, Vintage

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• In fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces, importunate scoundrels, or successful butchers of the human race.

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Successful, Race, Temples

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• One or two of these scoundrel statesmen should be shot once a-year, just to keep the others on their good behavior.

  Walter Scott

  Years, Two, Behavior

  Walter Scott (1871). “Waverley Novels”

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• The Peloponnesian War turns out to be no dry chronicle of abstract cause and effect. No, it is above all an intense, riveting, and timeless story of strong and weak men, of heroes and scoundrels and innocents too, all caught in the fateful circumstances of rebellion, plague, and war that always strip away the veneer of culture and show us for what we really are.

  Thucydides

  Strong, War, Hero

  Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert B. Strassler (2008). “The Landmark Thucydides”, p.23, Simon and Schuster

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